


A very festive time

by Antares10



Series: Banned-Together-Bingo-2020 fics [19]
Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Banned Together Bingo, Cyan is Imposter, Discussion about Religions and cultures, Distant future, Friendship, Humans among the stars, Other, Prompt: positive take on religious minorities, Some worldbuilding, Star Trek References, all humans use "They/Them", space travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27711749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antares10/pseuds/Antares10
Summary: Outer Space. The last frontier. The big nothing between everything. The cold vacuum between all the hot and interesting things in the universe.One of the interesting things is a small, turtle-shaped ship and the ten people on board. There might be lots of differences between them but all of them love the stars and all of them have become friends over the time spend together. This becomes clear even more so around this time of the year.
Relationships: Crewmates & Imposter
Series: Banned-Together-Bingo-2020 fics [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1802935
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	A very festive time

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooo... did I mention that I love Star Trek? XDD 
> 
> For the setting: 1 Imposter, nobody died but choose a pacifist ending ;) All humans use they/them so you can imagine any gender you want. Also pairings are up for everybody to imagine. Also we are in the Distant Future, everybody is free to imagine just how far we are.

Outer Space. The last frontier. The big nothing between everything. The cold vacuum between all the hot and interesting things in the universe.

There is no sound between in the nothing and the everything is screaming unheard into the void. If you had the right instruments however, you might be able to “hear” all kinds of things anyway. Stars being born or dying, pulsars and neutron stars emitting radiation, matter burning and freezing at the same time, ice and stone being crushed and destroyed and created at the same time.

And there were other, very very interesting sounds. But to hear these you kinda have to know exactly WHERE you have to turn and you have to listen very very hard and maybe need some really expensive tech to do so.

But if you were able to focus your best scanner on a very specific and very fast traveling object in the cosmos, you might be able to pick up some of the most interesting sounds of the universe:

Multiple people bickering with each other and (maybe) some drunken singing, being carried away and out of range faster than you could make out any actual words, traveling inside a strangely, turtle-shaped spaceship.

The Skeld was not a very fast ship, nor was she the newest. But she was a loyal lady, steady and strong and kept alive by the ten life-forms inside of her bowls. Life-forms that periodically turn from a bunch of semi-professional scientists into sentimental fools because of some very very old traditions coming from a planet far far away from them and that only half of them ever saw in their life.

Green was Captain for a few standard years now but honestly, this crew was going to be the death of them... but this was not the first time that they had a crew that got very excited around this time of the year and they knew that crew moral was more important than MIRA protocol.

There were a lot of things more important than MIRA protocols to be honest, especially if you are far far out there and on a mission that will take five years to complete.

So the Skeld had a secret storage room that will only be opened during this very special time and that no other MIRA officers knew (officially) about.

All in all it looked like an assortment of random things but to Green's crewmates they meant the world.

“Oh yes, fucking finally! It's almost Christmas!” cheered Purple and normally Green would have scolded their mechanic for such an outburst but well... they knew it was special for them (And Purple was a damn good mechanic and you never want to piss of your mechanic when in outer space) so they didn't say anything. Purple luckily had to concentrate on their task on hand and with the help of Red and Lime got a fake tree and some other decorative stuff out of the storage room. The tree was only half the size of each of them and will go on a table in the cafeteria, decorated with all sorts of lights and ornaments. Lime was humming age-old songs of cheer under their breath. There was the smell of cinnamon and apples in the air, indicating that Yellow was well infected with the festive mood too and probably cooking up a storm already.

“... what are they doing?”, asked Cyan, sounding slightly weirded out and Green had to chuckle a bit. No wonder Cyan was confused, it was their first time seeing the others like that.

“Well... it's just a tradition back from mother Terra.” said Green, smiling softly despite themselves. They only had been on earth for two weeks when they were much younger, but still... they thought about that time quite fondly.

“A tradition?”

“Well, we think it is.” said White. The doctor was suddenly standing next to them, a glass with an bright green liquid in their hand that smelled like the same apple-cinnamon-mix that was in the air. “Not like those traditions are old as balls, half-forgotten and not really relevant in space. Lots of stuff gets forgotten or added on over time, especially in the colonies.”

“Aw come on White!” whined Black as they joined the others. “It's fun!” They proceed to get a big... thing... with candles out of the storage room. “Also it's culture, you heathen.”

That just got them a rather rude gesture and a laugh from White which prompted Black to laugh too. Green just shook his head. Those two will be the reason they will have to call themself Grey soon, they just knew!

“So... what is this?”, asked Cyan again, looking interested as the others carried more and more strange things out of the storage. “... and are White and Black fighting?”

“Nah, they are just stupid”, said Lime. “Just ignore them they just like to rip on each other.”

  
“And for the other thing... uh... the thing is, it's not just ONE thing, it's several.” explained Blue who came over after helping Black with the candle-thing. “Firstly, it's Christmas. Or well, down on Mother Terra it would be Christmas... I think. Space-travel makes stuff a bit difficult with time.”

“Christmas?”, asked Blue.

“Sure. It's a religious thing... uh... mostly.” Blue said, glancing to Green who game a nod.

“Christmas is mostly celebrated by a religion called Christianity.” Green explained. “Back on the earth it was one of the more prominent religions. Christians celebrated the birth of the person that started their religion. It's mostly a time to be together with family, give each other gifts, remind each other to be not total jerks to each other, the good stuff... but to be honest, a lot of the traditions are either older or newer than the whole “Birth of the savior” thing.”

Cyan looked confused and Green sighed. “It probably was a celebration of the time when the days started to get longer again and a sign that either a new year was coming or well... spring. Eventually. But anyway, Christmas in on itself got very little to do with that anymore and over time

lots of people celebrated it, even if they are not Christians themselves.”

  
“Yeah, only Lime and me are actual Christians.”, said Purple as they came back to get some colorful balls made out of glass from the storage. “Well... I am not a good one, but I think when the good book was written, nobody considered how difficult it would be to find a church in Space.”

Lime chuckled as they heard that. “Yeah, I think most religions didn't really consider this.”

“You have it easy.”, groaned Black. “Try finding Mecca in this mess. I would be happy to know where our SUNSYSTEM is at any given time...”

Cyan turned to Black curiously. “Why do you need to know that?”

  
“Well, I am a muslem. Our prayers should be turned to Mecca... it's uh... a pretty important city for us, you know? I am supposed to travel there once in my life at least.”

“But... let me guess, space-travel?”

Black grinned and nodded.

“Space travel. Makes everything complicated. But I guess we are allowed some leeway. In my mind I pray to Mecca and in my mind I am on a never-ending quest towards it, even if the ship takes me away from it.”

Yellow, who just joined the whole chaos nodded sagely and patted Black on the back. “Maybe one day we can go there in body if not in spirit... or at least to planet earth at some point. Would be neat.”

“So... do you celebrate Christmas too?”

  
“Heck yeah.” said Black. “I mean it's not part of MY religion, but it's a fun tradition and if the Atheists are allowed to get in on the fun, we are too!”

“... Atheists?”

“People who don't belong to any religion or don't believe in any god... The Captain, me and Red could be considered Atheists.”, explained White. “Doesn't mean we won't join in on any fun we can.”

“Yeah, I mean... stuff like “Give gifts”, “Do Party” and “Be nice to each other” is something everybody can get behind. Also I like the decoration stuff. It's neat.” said Red, grinning widely as they disappeared again in the storage.

“Huh...” said Cyan and looked to Blue and Orange, who hadn't said anything about their religions yet.

“I am Jewish.” explained Blue when they felt Cyan's eyes on them. “But that's more a culture than religious thing? Or both? Well, it's complicated... but yeah, we have something different instead of Christmas that works a bit similar. We celebrate a mix of Christmas and Chanukah every year anyway, so I am not complaining. We change it up how we call it every year, next year we call it Chanukah again even if it's the same way we celebrate it.“

“Best of all the worlds, baby!”, cheered Red.

“And when Eid al-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha comes along, we celebrate all together too.“, said Black. „It's something that is very important to me and Yellow.“

„... and what are those?“, asked Cyan.

“Well, Eid al-Fitr is the celebration of the breaking of fasting and after that we celebrate Eid ul-Adha... Uh, it's a bit hard to explain without some backstory...” Black rubbed the back of their head and seemed to think about how to explain this the best to Cyan. “Like... there is an old story about a human being asked to sacrifice their child to their god to prove that they are serious and devoted to their faith. They were ready to do it but Allah stopped them when they saw how devoted they were and that the fact that they was ready to go through with it was proof enough. After that the human and their child sacrificed an animal instead. And uh... the really old tradition had it that you are supposed to still kill an animal and give the meat to your friends and family and wish them good luck and fortune. In a way it's still about caring for each other and providing food and stuff for others if you can.”

“Funny thing is, we have almost the same story in our religion too.” chuckled Purple. “There is a lot of crossovers between religions, honestly... turns out that the motive of “be nice to each other and take care of each other” is so often present no matter what culture or religion.”

“So... you do still kill an animal here?”, asked Cyan. “I haven't seen any here...”

“Yeah, no that isn't really possible on a space ship.” said Black. “Like, we can't just take a bunch of animals with us just for that. But Yellow usually whips up something that LOOKS like an animal that we can share.”

“Lots of people of our faith do that.”, said Yellow. “Space travel changes lots of things.”

“I guess...”, mumbled Cyan and looked to Orange now who had finally joined them too and got a ton of electrical lights out of the storage.

  
“Are you Jewish too?”

“Ah, no. I practice Buddhism but we do kinda celebrate Christmas or Chanukah too... Well at least I do. With the crew. Because it's fun.”, said Orange before going back to minding his little lights.

“Hey, do you celebrate anything over the year?”, asked Green Cyan.

“Oh yeah, do tell!”, said Black, coming closer. “You don't talk much about... you know... your people. Mind sharing?”

“Uh...”, Cyan looked between them and Green felt a small pang inside their chest that felt a lot like sympathy and maybe protectiveness.

It's been three months since they all figured out that Cyan was an Imposter but apparently one that wasn't really interested in the whole “Killing and Eating” business. It was a bit strange and at times it had been a bit dangerous, but it worked all out for them. Yellow and Red had put their heads together and the cook and the scientist had actually cooked up an solution for Cyan's feeding problem while Green had taken it up on themselves to teach Cyan how to pass for a human and do the tasks on board just like everybody else. If anybody from MIRA would ask then they would say that Cyan was just a perfectly normal Crewmate who did all their tasks well and on time and nobody would be the wiser.

They were on a five-year-mission after all, it wasn't as if MIRA could just send somebody to CHECK. White faked some body scans for Cyan and that was that. There was still the issue of what will happen AFTER their mission but that was honestly a problem for future-Green to worry about.

For now Cyan is Cyan and Cyan is THEIRS and Green had the hunch that they was not the only one who would go to bat for the Imposter.

“Well... my kind is... different in that regard?”, mumbled Cyan. “I mean... we have... believes and superstitions? … maybe we once had actual religions and traditions like yours when we were still living on our planet... but we live in space probably longer than you kind is even around and most of us live in very small amounts together...”

“Really now?” asked Red. “Dude, how OLD is your whole species?”

“I really dunno.” mumbled Cyan. “Out planet is long gone, our sun burned out... nobody really knows anymore where we came from...We don't write much down about ourselves too. Look, the whole... thing where we pretend to be somebody and something else? That's what we are. I grew up on a space station and there was only my parent and maybe an other handful of our kind around, the rest was humans like you. My parent taught me everything I needed to know and to survive, how to pretend to be somebody else... I learned enough about humans to blend in too, but I didn't really get any of... this stuff here.”

“So... wait, back off a bit... what, you people LOST their whole sense of self?”, asked White, a bit horrified. “Your... culture and all that stuff?”

“Kinda...?”, said Cyan slowly. “We lived amongst others for a very long time already as far as we know.... I mean I never learned another language other than the one you speak. Cyan was the name I took for myself, I don't remember any before that. And we don't really stick together much. Our kind can recognize each other, but we... don't really have much of ourselves as a group left.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as all humans were looking at Cyan with varries degrees of horror and some pity. Green couldn't imagine to not have any sort of roots. And with the way Cyan was talking about it, it didn't seem to be just the nature of the Imposter. If they didn't care they wouldn't be sad about it, right?

He wondered not for the first time how things came to be like that. Were did the Imposter came from, why did they live among humans (and probably other space faring races), why did they act the way they did? (They killed because they needed food, because they needed protein and other stuff that wasn't typical synthesized in the food-synthesizers. But they weren't even sure about that fact. Cyan had lived them for weeks and never tried to eat any of them.) It was a mystery and Cyan themselves didn't seem to have the full picture either. A race completely losing any of their identity.. had there been a war, a catastrophe, something else?

“Well... you can have our stuff then.” said Blue, breaking the silence and Green's musings.

“What?”

“Well... the whole culture stuff. We can share.” said Blue, beaming at Cyan. “You can even pick out which parts you like!”

  
“Oh sweet, that sounds awesome!”, cheered Black. “Don't worry we show you so much stuff... and you can even make up your own stuff if you want.”

Orange nodded. “If you let us assist you, I am sure we will find something you like for yourself.”

Cyan looked between the different Crewmen and Green could swear they saw them... wobble a bit. Was that what Imposter did when they were touched? Cyan DID sound touched in any case.

“T...Thanks.” they mumbled and Green went to them and wrapped an arm around them.

“You are one of us now. Doesn't matter where you are from or what was before.”

Imposter didn't cry. They could emulate a lot of things a human body could do but tears were always something they didn't manage well. Still, Cyan made a small sound that might have come close to a human sob.

The whole thing ended in a group-hug, a small mumbled “thanks guys” and a mess of Christmas, Chanukah and probably some other festive decoration stuff. And SOMEBODY WHO WILL NOT BE NAMED just HAD to mumble “And god bless us all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Banned Together Bingo 2020, prompt: positive take on religious minorities. I mean... in this a bunch of different people from different backgrounds are working together all in harmony and are friends. That counts, right?
> 
> Okay. So. I was a bit afraid of this chapter.  
> I am an atheist. My whole family is for generations. Faith and religion is something that is... difficult to me and seen as some kind of hobby for most people around here. Also my culture can be considered Christian-influenced so... yeah. Not much knowledge on my side of these issues outside of the basics we learned in school. So I did some google-research, I thought about how certain things could be different if humans lived a lot of time in outer Space and gave all humans on board of the Skeld the most chill outlook on things I could imagine.  
> Still, if I made mistakes in this... uh... please consider that these are humans in like... probably the year 25XX, space traveling for generations, most of them never living on Earth and things change with time? (Also I am sorry too)  
> But yeah, all kinds of cultures and religions on one ship celebrating together and helping an alien to feel included? (Also I couldn't help myself and put a StarTrek homage in it XD)  
> (Also Black is in part modeled after a very delightful young man I worked with for a while. He had almost the same outlook on things like Black: He loved celebrating Christmas because it was fun but he was also ready to take the Christmas shift if we were chill with him taking some days off when his important celebrations came around. We didn't talk religion a lot sadly but he was a very happy person and I remember him and our time working together very fondly.)


End file.
